Mannolini takes pole position

INVESTMENT banker Justin Mannolini admits that he had not expected to take the reins at the Perth of corporate advisory firm Gresham office just yet.

It’s just two years since the former corporate lawyer quit national legal firm Freehills to join the Western Australian branch of Gresham, a boutique player half owned by Wesfarmers.

In late 2007, Mr Mannolini was following in the footsteps of Gresham’s Perth managing director Michael Ashforth, another corporate lawyer from Freehills who established the WA office not long after shifting across to investment banking in 1997.

Last week’s departure of Mr Ashforth from Gresham to national giant Macquarie Capital means Mr Mannolini has again mimicked the moves of his former boss.

This time, though, they will be adversaries in WA’s corporate advisory world, each operating in very different models of investment banking.

For Mr Mannolini, who said his role as head of the Perth office is really shared with two other key local executives, Julian Mills and Jenny Seabrook, the strength of Gresham is its independence from a banking parent. Focused to a large extent on mergers and acquisitions while doing some equity capital markets work, Gresham pitches itself as the market’s big independent player.

“Our clients like having someone who can tell them what the real story is in the market,” he said.

Macquarie is the biggest Australian-owned player in the national market but it has failed to decisively leverage that dominance in the Perth market where it has had to fight for space against boutiques such as Sydney-based Gresham and Perth advisory firms Azure Capital, as well as more specialist success stories including Euroz and Argonaut.

After last year’s downturn, the quick revival of the market in WA appears to have sparked Macquarie into being better positioned to take advantage of the upturn.

The key local players at Macquarie have been former Ernst & Young advisory partner Martin Alciaturi, who joined in late 2006 and long-term executive Craig Carter who returned to Perth at the end of the boom just past.

Mr Ashforth, who will take over as head of the Macquarie Capital operations in Perth, said the wider services range of Macquarie and its greater global reach had appealed to him.